Give Your Baby the Best Nutrients Through Breastfeeding

Overview

As a breast-feeding mother, you don't need to stick to an extremely restrictive diet, but you may want to limit unhealthy food choices and try to optimize your meals to include things that will help your baby thrive. You'll need at least 1,800 calories a day to sustain your milk supply, and you and your baby will both feel better if you get most of those calories from healthy whole foods. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding your baby for a minimum of one year, and continuing to breast-feed as long as both mother and baby desire.

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Foods to Avoid When Breastfeeding

A nursing mother doesn't need to completely avoid any food as long as the baby is not displaying a sensitivity to the mother's diet, but some foods should be consumed only in moderation. While breast-feeding, you should limit caffeine intake to two or three cups a day. If you drink alcohol, wait two to three hours after having a single drink before nursing your baby in order to allow the alcohol to clear your system. Fish contains omega-3 fats that help a breast-feeding baby's developing brain, but fish can also be contaminated with mercury. Stick to eating about 12 ounces of fish per week to ensure a healthy supply of omega-3 fats while keeping the risk of mercury contamination low. Avoid tilefish, king mackerel, swordfish and shark because these fish are high in mercury. Salmon, pollock, catfish and canned light tuna are good choices that are low in mercury.

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Can Soda Hurt While Breastfeeding?

Soda won't necessarily cause an issue when breast-feeding, but some of the components in soda could be problematic, so you may need to limit your soda consumption to only a few cans or glasses a day. Caffeine is one soda ingredient that should be limited in a breast-feeding diet, so if you drink a lot of soda, you may need to switch to a caffeine-free variety. Artificial sweeteners approved by the FDA are all deemed safe for breast-feeding, but if you have a baby diagnosed with the disorder PKU, or phenylketonuria, then you may need to avoid sodas with aspartame. Check with your pediatrician.

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How Ginger Affects Breastfeeding Babies

Some folk traditions recommend not consuming ginger while pregnant or nursing, but no scientific reason exists for avoidance. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ginger is generally recognized as safe for mothers of breast-feeding babies. While you may experience mild side effects from ginger, such as heartburn or abdominal discomfort, not enough of the ginger travels through your breast milk to affect your baby. The taste of ginger may linger in your breast milk, however, and may make your child more likely to enjoy ginger-flavored foods later in life. A 2001 study in the journal "Pediatrics" found that babies exposed to specific strong flavors in their mother's milk showed a preference for those flavors later.

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Can My Children Suck All My Nutrition While Breastfeeding?

As long as you get a balanced diet that includes the minimum recommended amounts of nutrients for a lactating woman, both you and your baby should have sufficient nutrients to sustain you both. Nutrient requirements for a breast-feeding mother are typically higher for most nutrients compared to non-lactating women. Because a nursing mother's body tends to preferentially give nutrients to the baby instead of herself, it is possible to become deficient in one or more vitamins or minerals if your diet is lacking in any specific nutrient. Many doctors recommend continuing to take a prenatal vitamin while nursing as a precautionary measure to ensure that all nutrient levels stay adequate no matter what the mother eats.

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Can You Take Flaxseed Shakes While Breastfeeding?

The safety of flaxseed while breast-feeding is unknown, and advice on the subject is conflicting even among experts. Mayo Clinic recommends avoiding flaxseed entirely until after your baby has been weaned because there is no scientific evidence for or against flaxseed consumption during breastfeeding. Flaxseed may have physiologic effects in healthy adults, such as lowering blood pressure and blood sugar levels. However, pediatrician Dr. Willliam Sears recommends that breast-feeding mothers consume a tablespoon of flaxseed oil each day because the seeds contain an important oil that is beneficial for early brain development. Additionally, many nursing mothers regularly consume flaxseed as part of their regular diet, especially in cultures where flaxseed has been a food source for thousands of years, and no reports of problems have been recorded in humans. Talk to your doctor about whether flaxseed is safe for you and your baby before including flaxseed shakes in your diet.

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Can I Use HCG Diet Drops If I Am Breastfeeding?

HCG drops are a concentrated form of human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone released by the body during pregnancy. Dieters sometimes take them in conjunction with a specified food plan, but this is not generally considered a healthy method of dieting. You should not use HCG diet drops when breast-feeding because it is unknown whether the human chorionic gonadotropin in the drops travels into breast milk or whether it might harm your baby. Also, the HCG diet requires a very low calorie intake, around 500 calories a day, which is not sufficient to support breast milk production, so you are likely to experience problems producing milk if you go on this diet.

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The Amount of Fish Oil Taken by a Breastfeeding Mom

Fish oil contains the long-chain omega-3 fat DHA, which can travel into breast milk and help build your baby's developing brain. Omega-3 fats may also help reduce the risk of postpartum depression in the mother. The American Pregnancy Association recommends consuming at least 300 milligrams of DHA each day, so if you use a fish oil supplement, look for one with at least this amount. Different fish oil preparations have different DHA levels, so one brand may contain this much in a single capsule, while another brand may only have half of this amount per capsule. While fish can be contaminated with mercury, the distillation process used to separate out the oil typically removes any contamination. Some brands of fish oil have been independently tested by labs registered with the FDA or WHO and certified as mercury-free, but there is no central board that offers this kind of certification.

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Can I Take Any Supplements If I'm Breastfeeding and My Baby Has a Cold?

In general, breast-feeding is the best supplement for a baby with a cold because breast milk contains antibodies and live immune cells that help her fight off the virus causing the illness. Supplements intended to reduce the symptoms of a cold in an adult, such as echinacea and homeopathic remedies, don't generally travel into your breast milk, so taking them yourself is unlikely to make your baby feel better. If you want to take supplements to help prevent you from catching your baby's cold, talk to your pediatrician about which supplement to take and the correct dose to use.